An email blast sent Wednesday to supporters by Michigan's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate prompts a sharp response from the Detroit Free Press.
Stephen Henderson: "I’m beyond puzzled -- mystified would be the right word." (WXYZ photo)
Hadas Gold, media reporter for Politico, reports on the flare-up:
The Detroit Free Press editorial page editor is calling Terri Lynn Land’s efforts to avoid an endorsement meeting a type of blackmail.
The Michigan GOP Senate candidate’s campaign is refusing to attend an endorsement meeting with the Free Press editorial board unless the newspaper changes an Oct 4. op-ed by columnist Brian Dickerson, which called Land as accessible "as a music video diva recovering from plastic surgery."
"You will never see us acquiesce to this sort of blackmailing in the way to try and condition an endorsement interview on some sort of effort on our part — that’s just not how we do things," Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson said in an interview. "I have never seen a campaign condition an endorsement interview on an apology for a column before. I’m beyond puzzled -- mystified would be the right word." . . .
"This is a way to try and make it look as though we‘ve done something to prevent her from coming in here. But in fact, this request has been out there for more than month," Henderson said.
Gary Peters, a Democrat, is the other major party nominee. He met Tuesday with the Freep editorial board.
The paper wants to speak with each candidate before endorsing one. After replying to questions from Land aides after its first request, Henderson says, the paper sent a second invitation Oct. 6.
The first they heard from the campaign was on Wednesday, when the blast email said the campaign was calling on the Free Press to "to correct (a) sexist attack on Terri Lynn Land." For Land to be "open to considering a meeting" with the Free Press editorial board, they would first have to correct the "deeply offensive" column.
Brian Dickerson
In his weekend commentary early this month, Dickerson described a Michigan Public Radio interview Oct. 3 with Land as "a maddening exercise in evasion, obfuscation and incomprehensibility." He concluded:
There's little chance that Michigan's U.S. Senate contest is going to turn on Land's amorphous views on health care, her opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, or her secessionist scheme to opt out of federal transportation funding. It's going to turn on the Republicans' fateful decision to nominate a woman who loses ground every time she opens her mouth, a candidate so inarticulate that even voters ideologically disposed to support her aren't sure what she's saying.
The Free Press endorsed Land during her successful 2006 run for secretary of state, Henderson notes on Twitter.
Now, however, Land and her strategists know have more than a hunch that the paper won't back her whether or not she sits down with Henderson, Dickerson and other editorial board members.
-- Alan Stamm
